Arnold Hague, born 1930, carried out his National Service
from 1949 as a Midshipman, Supply &
Secretariat, then joined the Reserve Division in
London, retiring as a Lieutenant Commander in
1979. In this time, his appointments included
command of two Reserve Communications Centres
and the Sea Cadet Corps in the West Midlands
area. His published books include “The Towns,
Destroyers for Great Britain”, “Sloops
1926-1946”, “Convoy Rescue Ships”, “The Allied
Convoy System 1939-1945” and co-author of
“Convoys to Russia”. He was also as sub-editor
of “Jane’s Fighting ships” in the late 1960’s
and made numerous contributions to naval
publications over the last forty years. He died
in February 2006, and is much missed in naval
history circles.

It is therefore with great pleasure that
Naval-History.Net, through the good offices of
Arnold’s close friend and collaborator, Don
Kindell and with the kind permission of his
wife, Gill Hague (also a former Reserve
Officer), hosts his unpublished and invaluable
work on the WS convoys.

As with all of Arnold’s work, primary official sources
were the key and this work is no exception,
relying as it does on Official Admiralty War
Diaries, narratives, and convoy reports, Lloyds
ship movement cards, etc.

Editor's
Note: Some ship positions in some convoys are
duplicated. Unfortunately the original work
notes are no longer available and there is no
easy was to know which of these ships belonged
where.

Photographs are mainly
courtesy of Steve Johnson of Cyberheritage
(CH), Michael Pocock of Maritime
Quest (MQ), Peter Swarbrick of Ships
Pictures (SP), US
Naval Historical Centre (US) and their
contributors. (Each image is acknowledged by the
abbreviation for the main source and name of the
individual contributor if appropriate). My thanks
to all of them.